


Stay At Work

by duckbunny



Series: Camaraderie [10]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Asexual Character, Biting, Knifeplay, M/M, Masochism, Mutual Pining, No Sex, Non-Sexual Kink, Platonic BDSM, Sadism, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5707738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckbunny/pseuds/duckbunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All work and no play. Honest. Definitely. Nobody is being a wilfully frustrating tease here, at all. And if they were, it would only be out of self-defense.</p><p>Rated M for happy fun masochism. Mentions of knifeplay, nothing graphic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay At Work

Laurens is being driven to distraction.

Alexander is doing it on purpose. It's the only explanation. Habits may change, but not without cause, and not when yesterday he was putting his pen down to find papers and seal dispatches. The _only_ possible reason is that he has decided to turn his considerable powers of persuasion against Laurens, which is why every time he needs to use both his hands today he has put his pen in his mouth.

He's doing it right now. He's got the wooden shaft of his pen gripped sideways between his teeth while he hunts around for the right letter on his crowded desk. He isn't chewing it, like any normal person with that tendency. He's just holding it. It's maddening.

It takes three hours for Alexander to find an excuse to need both his hands free at the same moment as Laurens is looking at him. He doesn't so much as raise an eyebrow. He just puts the pen in his mouth and slowly, deliberately, pointedly bites down.

Laurens grits his teeth. This means war.

 

**

 

They have both been writing every hour of daylight for weeks, so Alexander knows perfectly well where Laurens' hand cramps. It's across the edge, under the base of his fingers, and he has a particular scowl when he's rubbing it out with the other thumb. Alexander has watched him more than he ought, but he knows what writer's cramp looks like.

Laurens is not a perfect actor. He's probably fooling the soldiers who come in and out for their orders – he's probably even fooling the General, from a distance. He is not fooling Alexander.

He's got a good little performance worked up, very understated. He grimaces a little (too much movement of his mouth, the real thing is more of a frown) and rubs his wrist (not where he gets cramps) with all his fingers together. Sometimes he wraps his entire hand around it, thumb and fingertips almost meeting, and grips hard enough that Alexander can see the bones shifting under his skin.

It's a blatant invitation. Worse, it's working.

 

**

 

There is no damn time. They work, they march, they snatch sleep and food when they can. Laurens knows he ought to be able to forget about it, and know he'll fail; he starts counting the days. Sixteen days since he last got enough to feel settled, Alexander lying half on top of him with one hand tight on his wrists and the other dragging down his back, carving slow red welts under the shirt they didn't quite dare to remove. A week since the last frantic minutes of privacy, Alexander shoving him up hard against a tent-pole and biting desperately at his arm, too fast and too hard with his hand pressed over Laurens' mouth to keep him quiet because too fast and too hard is all they have time for and it's better than nothing. The bruise hardly shows but it's sore for two days. He spends two days pressing his own fingers into the tender place and if Alexander is almost as distracted by it as he is, for once it isn't on purpose. When he's still doing it three days after the pain has stopped, just to watch the effect on Alexander, that he'll concede is on purpose, and almost makes up for the loss of the bruise.

 

**

 

“Give it back, Alexander.”

“I'm using it.”

“I need it, this is almost done-”

“Come and get it, then.”

“Alexander, don't make me beg.”

“As if anyone could.”

“You could.”

 

**

 

Alexander is impressed. He's not sure where Laurens found the chance – suspects he actually had to do it in the middle of the night – but he had no idea it had gone missing until Laurens stopped casually by his desk and sets his pen-knife on top of the unopened letters.

“I think you dropped this.”

The knife sits there for the next hour, while Alexander works feverishly on dispatches that can't wait. It's not that there's anything unusual about it. It's a pen-knife. But the last time his pen-knife and Laurens were paired in his mind, there was a lot more whimpering than is in any way permissible in a command tent. It was beautiful whimpering, it was the two of them pressed close on a rare morning when Washington was away from camp and they wouldn't be overheard in their little tent, with the dawn light pale through the canvas and Laurens so desperately eager, pressing against the point of the blade and now all Alexander can hear, while he copies out orders as fast as he can write, is Laurens whispering “Please, more?”

Laurens doesn't even glance at the knife. He does look at Alexander occasionally, and smirk, just a little.

Alexander would rather like to applaud the cleverness of the move.

 

**

 

Laurens, unlike some he could name, is not superhuman and cannot go entirely without sleep. This is unfortunate, as there is always enough work to keep him up. He has been trying to puzzle out von Steuben's explanation of this manoeuvre since afternoon, up to and including acting it out with scraps of paper. He thinks he has it straight, but now he's thinking about it half in French, and it needs to be entirely in English…

He wakes up with his head pillowed, not comfortably, on his arms, and Alexander crouched beside him.

“John, my dear fellow, go to bed.”

Laurens shakes his head stubbornly. “Can't. Translations.”

“They will still be there in the morning.”

“That's the problem,” Laurens says, and drops his forehead despairingly to the desk.

Alexander pulls him up again by his hair. “Bed,” he says firmly, “or the General will decide you are fit to take his dictation, which you are plainly not.”

If any of what he's thinking now creeps into his work, as stray notions have a tendency to do when he's pushed it too long, he will be turned out of the army. Bed suddenly seems like an excellent idea, especially if – oh, _blast_. “You're still working,” he points out, not mentioning the way Alexander's hand, dropping to his shoulder, is closer than it should be to his neck. Alexander is exhausted, in that state where he can't keep still because if he stops moving he'll never start again, and his eyes are just a little too wide, so Laurens takes revenge for that pull at his hair and leans closer, tilting his head and putting his throat practically into Alexander's hand.

Alexander swallows.

“Fuck,” he says softly. “I have to work. Washington. Dictation.”

“Fuck,” Laurens agrees. “If I wake up hanged, it will be your fault.”

“Don't wake up hanged. Go to sleep. Not on your desk.” Alexander's fingers are trembling, but he doesn't pull away; Laurens has to reach up and do it for him, take his hand and set it gently against his own chest.

“Go to Washington before he starts shouting. The rest – it will still be here in the morning.”

Even that sliver of a promise makes Alexander's eyes blaze.


End file.
